Our Story

Bryton and I met in early 2011. I went to a dance with a guy over on the North Shore (Auckland) and by the time we got there it had finished. We decided to go to Lake Pupuke in Takapuna to socialize with the rest of the YSA (young single adults). When we got there it was raining and the guy I was with went to talk to his friends. But my hair looked way too good to get ruined by the rain so I went to stand in the shelter. There were a couple of other guys standing there so I went to talk to them. At this time I wasn’t really interested in getting serious with anyone, but I was going on dates with a few different guys. I thought it would be cool to get to know a few more people in the area so I thought there would be no harm in talking to these guys.

One of them was really appealing to me. He was really quiet and didn’t seem interested in me at all. He was studying Architecture and he had a strange almost-American accent. While the other guys spent a lot of time talking themselves up, I became more interested in this one guy. His name was Bryton and I wanted to get to know him some more. That night I wrote about him in my journal and joked that he could be a potential husband (hahaha).

A week later I saw him again at the institute building in the city. I then enrolled into the institute class he was teaching because I was a psycho stalker. The following week after institute he asked for my number and he texted me that weekend. I was so excited!

Our first dance together after our first date.

He finally asked me on a date and it was the best first date I’d ever been on! We had previously joked about how strange it was that people catch the ferry to and from work/school in Auckland because you don’t do that where I was from (Hamilton). To me it was a really big deal to go on a ferry. So for our first date we got Nandos, caught the ferry to Devonport, got ice cream and chatted. That night we were supposed to go to institute but we had such a great time talking we missed the ferry back and ended up going really late. No regrets.

Bryton was such a sweetheart. He was a gentleman, very kind, and paid attention to everything I said. I’d never met anyone like him and I wanted to get to know him better.

April 2011

I think it was about a week later when he asked me to go steady with him. I met his family and he met mine and they couldn’t be more different. Bryton was easy to love. He was always kind, he opened the door for me and carried my bag. He was a genuinely nice person and I didn’t believe it. We dated for a few months before I knew I loved him and within the year I knew I wanted to marry him. But it wasn’t the same for him. I guess I’m a bit harder to love haha. We were together for 3 years before we got married – that’s a long time for a Mormon couple! But that’s another story and you can read it here.

When he proposed to me it was the most exciting thing!! Most of my other friends were already married and had been married for a couple of years. I honestly did not know if Bryton and I would ever get married, but I’m so happy we did. We got tons of questions from people wondering why we weren’t getting married. People would tell me to break up with him because he was taking too long. I even had one lady from church tell me that she had received revelation that Bryton wasn’t the one for me. Oh PLEASE! Everyone had their own opinions of our relationship but that didn’t matter because it was none of their business. Jokes on them though because we’ve been married for almost 2 years and I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

The night Bryton proposed

Everyone’s situation is different. For some people 3 months is enough time to get to know someone well enough to marry them. For us we needed 3 years and the Lord knew that. Don’t compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter fifteen.